Twitter Me This

I promised myself I wouldn’t push my own agendas on this site, but I can’t help myself here. I have a serious disdain for twitter, despite its supposed benefits. I only even warmed to facebook (up to lukewarm from previously frostbitten) in the last few months.

Short form speed media only adds to mass confusion based on the misinterpretation of the ignorant. Despite the fact that I have read several pretty clear veiled insults thrown our way, the preceding statement of ignorance is not directed at anyone in particular, just kind of a broad feeling. It’s hard to even pinpoint where these things start on twitter. Its a cluster fuck over there. Like family members at Thanksgiving having 12 different conversations with people on the far end of the table. Often ignorance is to blame, but many times it is merely the expedited nature of twittering that leads to articles being skimmed and regurgitated incorrectly. The more I try and pay attention to twitter, the more I realize it’s an adult version of a game of telephone played with deaf people. This is one case where less is most definitely not more.

Maybe I am missed something, or had an aneurysm and wrote something during a blackout, but I don’t recall anyone, certainly not myself or Scribe, proclaiming that Doughty had a deal in place. And yet (again, unless I missed someone else reporting Doughty’s deal as being done or in place), our report last night that one of the deals offered to Doughty was for 7 years, $52 million, seems to have caused an avalanche of strange hysteria. Reports denied this, Lombardi/Meehan denied that. How can people deny something that was never claimed? Twitter, that’s how.

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Oh, Surly. As my mom used to say, “shit or get off the pot”. Twitter is here to stay and all the hysteria associated with it. Another one that came up last night was after reading Mayor’s Manor’s article on Mike Richards and Terry Murray talking “leadership”, that Philly fans “somehow” thought they read that Richards was given the “A”. All kinds of congrats tweets went out to @MRichie18. Ooppsy!!

You would have had the same “misunderstanding” if you just had posted the Drew story on your blog. It just would have taken until NOW for it to hit full steam. Twitter is just the bullet train for misinformation!

Ahhhh…. I know, get with the times an all that. The funny thing is that I’m very pro-technology. I’m a geek, love my computers, my iPads and my smartphones and general I direct blame at misuse of avenues instead of the avenue itself. Twitter is an exception for me. It’s very design lends itself to confusion and misinformation. I do find some good in twitter, but only when it is used in an entirely non-serious manner. Comedians, for instance. But even then, someone whose job it is to be funny can post something that is meant to be funny, but is then taken seriously, and down the dark dirty rabbit hole we go.

It’s not just the boys who like quickies! ;) I agree with Sydor….it’s google alerts on crack! Plus, for someone with no patience like me, if you can’t get your headline/statement across in 140 characters of less, then I more than likely don’t want to read the rest of your chatter!

Also, so nobody gets the wrong impression, nothing contained in this article is directed at Helene. As we have written before, we love Helene and everything she does. Truly the best in the business. Jacob’s frustration is with the folk who take what we write and translate it for their own agenda, like taking a “deal in principle” and translating it as a “deal” (when it means exactly what Dean said – “parameters”) or taking “offer” as “deal”, etc. Anyway, that horse has been beaten to death.

While it was definitely not directed at Helene…. technically it wasn’t directed at anyone either, certainly no one in particular. It is directed at the medium and while my temper boiled over yesterday in regards to twitter, these are opinions I’ve held about twitter for as long as its been around.